Cooking with the sun: DIY solar cooker
- by Anna Sattler on Apr 21st 2008 1:00PM
- Filed under food, seasonal, outdoor, staying green, nature
I am so excited that spring finally came yesterday. I spent most of the day outside picking up aluminum cans that were blown all over the yard, and my daughter, husband and I played in the dirt, soaking up the sun of a glorious 70 degree Sunday. I should have cleaned the grill, and cooked outside.Now is the time to save money on the electric bill and start cooking outdoors. Even cooking with a grill can cost a ton of money, especially if you do it on a weekly basis. Ecobites has a wonderful alternative for us, featuring an article with instructions showing us how to make a solar cooker.
The solar cooker was made out of recycled plywood and recycled aluminum; items that were readily accessible, could soak up solar rays, and give a high enough temperature to safely cook food. Almost anything would work though, like the cardboard oven shown in the picture. Happy cooking!
I would not recommend gluing aluminum foil to a cooking surface. The chances of the glue leaking through to the food and contaminating it are too great. Try to find some other shiny reflective surface to cook with, or just don't glue the aluminum foil to the surface. To avoid injury to your eyes, wear sunglasses, and do not look right at the cooking surface. As always, safety is the number one priority for a DIY project.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-22-2008 @ 5:39AM
SolReka said...
Great solar cooker you've built there. It just goes to show how easy it is to cook food using only the power of the Sun.
The ideal solar cooker is the parabolic design, as it offers high temps as well as short cooking times, however it is the most difficult design to build. The box design is still an effective method of solar cooking, as you have demonstrated.
I offer free solar cooking building plans as well as information on solar cooking and free energy. So feel free to read more about the wonderful world of solar cooking
Regards
http://www.solreka.com/blog
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